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I read this in a story online:

Вечером сестра пришла забирать, а пацан на полу лежит сытый и даже конструктор собирать не хочет. Я говорю: "Таня, а чё ты ему сказала такого? Он как подорвался всё жрать.

According to the context, I can only conclude that this means that the kid ate so much that he almost burst, but grammatically I can't reconcile that meaning with the actual Russian words/grammar. Is there an idiom here at play that I don't know about?

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как + perfective verb in the past/future tense or imperative means a sudden start and intensity of an act all in the past tense, e.g.

он как закричал/закричит/закричиhe just suddenly yelled so hard

подорвался is slang for вскочил, резко принялся, пустился, бросился

So the meaning of the phrase in the quotation is as follows

What is that that you told him? (Because) He just suddenly started devouring everything = Внезапно принялся всё пожирать

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    Great answer! So it's like "What did you say to him? All of a sudden he up and started eating everything in sight!" Got it!)))
    – CocoPop
    Mar 2, 2019 at 22:18
  • @CocoPop yup... Mar 2, 2019 at 22:19
  • 🥺 I hope somebody didn't tell you that "yup" in any way means "you're welcome"
    – CocoPop
    Mar 2, 2019 at 22:22
  • @CocoPop they hadn't, but it was in confirmation of your reading of the sentence, not in acknowledgment of accolade Mar 2, 2019 at 22:32
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    I didn't think that's how you meant it. It's kind of a cultural-linguistic thing - as in Russian, I'm sure. You see someone use something and figure "why not?" I just wanted to make sure you knew how it comes across. When I read it, I interpreted it as "yeah, whatever, I'm off to answer another post..." hahahahaha Thank you for explaining the Russian equivalents - it's been a very illuminating discussion!
    – CocoPop
    Mar 3, 2019 at 14:23

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